title: 001- In the Beginning
author: The History of Rome
contenttype: podcast
publication: The History of Rome
published: 2007-07-27T20:47:00-04:00
sourceurl: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/historyofrome/01-Inthe_Beginning.mp3?dest-id=5627
word_count: 2320
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It is the story of a refugee Trojan prince and how his great-great, great-great, great-great, great-great, great-great, great-great, great-great-great-great-great-grandsons would be wet-nursed by a she-wolf and later found the greatest city of the ancient world. The story of Rome begins with the end of the Trojan War. After Troy was finally sacked by the Greeks, Aneus, chief lieutenant of Hector, managed to escape with a few followers. They boarded ships and set out into the Mediterranean to find a new home. Their Odyssey took them from Asia Minor to the north coast of Africa where Aneus managed to sow the seeds of the three Punic Wars by seducing the Carthaginian Queen Dito and then abandoning her. Virgil writes that in the final moments before she committed suicide, Dito cursed the descendants of both to eternal enmity. O my tyrians, siege with hate, his progeny, and all his race to come. Make this your offering to my dust. No love, no pact must be between our peoples. No, but rise up from my bones of engine spirit. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. After securing an arch enemy for Rome, Aneus sailed to the west coast of Italy where he and his followers hoped to make a settlement. Arriving in the territory of Larentum, the Trojans were immediately met by armed locals who tried to drive them off. But their king, Latinus, decided to make peace rather than war with the foreigners and offered his daughter, Lavinia to Aneus, solidifying an alliance. This marriage came as quite a shock to Ternus, Prince of the Rituli, a nearby tribe, because Lavinia had already been pledged to him. Angered by this slap in the face, he led an attack on the combined Trojan and Latin forces. The Rituli were defeated, but King Latinus was killed in the fighting, leaving Aneus in control of both the Trojans and the Latins, who were rapidly intermarrying into a single people. Thank wished, Ternus and the Rituli turned north to the rich and powerful atrustans for help. The Etruscans were more than willing to lend a hand against the growing menace of the Trojan infused Latins and attacked. But Aneus in his final act led the Latins to victory, establishing the Tiber River as the boundary between the Latins and the Etruscans. We should pause the legend here before we get too far and give an account of the political landscape of pre-Roman Italy as historians and archaeologists understand it today. Who were the Latins, who were the Etruscans, where did they come from and what sort of lives did they lead? The origin of the Etruscans is debatable, however, DNA evidence points to a migration from Asia Minor, which, if true, offers a context for the legend of Aneus' arrival from Troj. The Etruscans were the dominant force, culturally and politically in the Italian Peninsula, and, as we will see, came to dominate Latent territory in the waning years of the Roman Kingdom. They had developed cities and a confederal state system long before the Latins, who remained in traditional tribal affiliations until the foundation of Rome, which was the first major settlement in Latent territory that could be called the city. The Etruscans were artists and craftsmen who had set up extensive trading networks that reached all the way to Greece. The trading roads between Aturia and the Greek cities of Magnagracia in the south ran right through Rome, offering a clue as to the reason for its location. The Latins, in contrast, were simple pastoral herdsmen. Evidence from ancient burial amounts suggests the Latins were descended from Balkan migrants, who crossed the Adriatican prehistory. Mostly shepherds and farmers, they did not have any sort of advanced arts or crafts. What culture they display seems to be little more than a blend of a Truscan and Greek elements. Indeed, nothing about later Roman history suggests the Latins were innovative at all in art, religion, or letters. They excelled at warfare and engineering and administrating, but were merely students of philosophy, never instructors. Their gods, to take one obvious example, are little more than an adaption of the Greek pantheon, Zeus becoming Jupiter, Hera becoming Juno, and so forth. What bound the Latins together was a common language, distinct from the Etruscan language to the north, and the imported Greek in the south. Latin, of course, forms the basis for half the languages in Europe, and its vocabulary still dominates the legal profession. But enough humorless anthropology, after Aeneas died, his young son, Asconius, grew to be king. The town built by the Trojan settlers had become too small for the exploding population, and Asconius led a group east to find a new settlement called Albalonga, which would become the seat of the growing Latin kingdom. Generation upon generation followed, and the Latins became powerful and secure. The kingship was passed from father to son until finally it rested upon the head of a man named Numator. Numator had a brother named Numulius, who coveted the throne and decided to seize power for himself. Numator was driven from Albalonga, all his sons were killed, and his daughter, Ray Sylvia, was forced to become a vestal virgin, to ensure she would bear no children who could threaten Numulius. However, after taking the vows, Ray was the victim of rape and consequently gave birth to twin boys. Ray declared that the god Mars was the father, but to no avail, and for the crime of allowing herself to be raped, she was thrown in prison. The twins were sent to be drowned in the tyber, however the men entrusted with the task found the river flooded and left the boys in the sluggish water rather than slogging their way to the river itself, and when the waters receded, the babies were left alive and well in the reeds. Here legend states that a she-wolf coming to the river to quench her thirst found the babies and offered her teats for them to suckle on. A herdsman came upon the scene and gathered the children up from the wolf who had been gently licking them and took them home with him. Even Livy acknowledges that the story of the wolf is a fable and postulates that it may have arisen because the herdsman's wife was a whore named wolf. The herdsman and his wife raised the boys, named Romulus and Rames as their own, and soon they grew to be men. Apparently the boys took a liking to fighting the local brigands who raided the countryside and began taking the fight to the robbers, raiding their camps and stealing from them. The criminals, angered by the theft of their booty, set a trap for the twins. Romulus managed to escape, but Rames was captured. The brigands took Rames to the local landowner who turned out to be none other than the exiled newmator and claimed Rames and his brother had been caught stealing newmator's cattle and that he should be punished. Newmator was immediately reminded of his twin grandsons and realizing that they would be the same age as Rames was now began to suspect that the boys were his blood. Newmator began making inquiries and soon learned the particulars of their upbringing and became convinced that they were his daughter's children. The herdsman, knowing Rames was a newmator's custody and having himself long suspected that his two boys were of royal blood, decided to tell Romulus the whole story of their discovery by the river. From this a plan was hatched to return newmator to the throne. With Romulus leading one group of men and Rames and another, they surprised and killed Emulius and brought newmator back to Albalanga. Newmator told the story of his brother's treachery and the circumstances of his grandsons' birth and the people shouted unanimous consent that newmator would be king once again. After newmator became king, Romulus and Rames decided to found a new settlement at the spot where they had been left to drown. There are two accounts of what happened next. One states that trouble arose when the question of who would be seen here in the new city was raised. They decided to allow the gods to decide and each retired to the top of the hill, Romulus the Powetine and Remus the Abentine to a way to sign. Soon enough six vultures landed at the feet of Remus and when his followers made this known to Romulus, 12 vultures immediately landed at Romulus's feet. A fight broke out with one side claiming primacy of arrival and the other claiming primacy of number. In this fight, Remus was killed. The other more famous story is that Remus, mocking his brother, jumped over the partially completed walls and Romulus in a fit of anger killed him, swearing, so perish whoever shall overleap my battlements. Either way, Romulus obtained sole power, the city was named for him and he became its first king. The legendary data foundation is April 21st 753 BC. Did it happen like this? Almost certainly not. After the sack of Rome and 386 BC, most of the early historical record was lost and with it the specifics we need for an accurate telling of the story. But archaeological evidence seems to support the broader strokes of the legend. Sevenths have been found on the Powetine hill that date from the 800s BC, suggesting that the legendary chronology is at least in the ballpark. The general story of a struggle between the Latin and a trust in people ending with ostensible Latin autonomy south of the Tiber also fits our understanding of the ethnic and cultural landscape of the era. It is doubtful that the side of Rome was chosen because it marked where the twins had been sent to die. More likely an easy river crossing coupled with the natural defenses offered by the nearby hills drew settlers to the area. And of course, as already noted, the site lay on the trade road between Aturia and Magnagracia. Without any real data to draw from, later Roman historians use common mythological elements to construct a conventional founding legend. Indo-European culture produced numerous examples of the divine twin myth-eem, including castor and polyx and itus and linseus of thebes. The motif of infant exposure gone wrong crops up in the biographies of both Perseus and Moses. And of course, most will recognize the virgin birth element from Christianity, but tales of miraculous or virgin births have surrounded important legendarian historical figures for millennium. The addition of a neus gives Rome a lofty ancestor and connects their city to the Greek civilizations the Romans so admired. However, it happened, a settlement was established at the bend in the tibre. This settlement grew and came to dominate its neighboring communities, then the entire Italian peninsula, then the entire Mediterranean. Next, we will cover Rome's unsavory beginnings, who the first Romans were, whose women they stole to ensure that there would be a second generation of Romans, and whether Romulus, great soldier that he was, died or simply faded away. Some people like working twice as hard just to stay right where they are. 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